New York MTA Asserts Copyright Over Schedule

Posted by timothy on Thursday August 20, 2009 @08:52AM from the might-be-a-bargain-if-they-always-kept-the-schedule dept.

Presto Vivace writes "Greater Greater Washington reports that 'The New York Metropolitan Transit Authority's lawyers are going after a local blogger, and attempting to block an iPhone application showing Metro-North railroad schedules. The blog StationStops writes about Metro-North Commuter Railroad service north of New York City, and often criticizes its operations. Its creator, Chris Schoenfeld, also created an iPhone application to give Metro-North riders schedule information. Now the MTA is insisting he pay them to license the data, and at one point even accused the site of pretending to be an official MTA site.' I can't believe that this the MTA's actions are going to go over well with the public."

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Re:Sure they have a copyright... by gnupun · 2009-08-20 11:08 · Score: 1, Flamebait

I hope he can fight this, perhaps the EFF will step in on his behalf.
Why should the EFF defend scrapers? They are leeches. The author used MTA-created data, and unless it's in the public domain, he should have to pay MTA a portion of his earnings. The $5000 fee at the top is a bit steep though.